Great mix of stuff in here! I was really excited about that rg slide! I watched some impressions and it’s just so chunky and apparently uncomfortable, but still so alluring.
Devil May Cry is all about the player expression. I would argue that the series has the best controls for doing so of all the character action games and has provided solid control schemes for different playstyles.
Even Royal Guard is fantastic: high risk reward that more than just another parry; it is a conscious choice between high risk, high potential gameplay.
I also think unless you aim to play DMC without engaging Son of Sparda and Dante Must Die, you’re really short-changing yourself in terms of what these games can really be
Are they perfect? No but they’re damn solid games that really do reward players that take the time to reach those higher skill levels while being perfectly beatable for the average pleb.
I’m a little younger, I grew up playing the NES. I had so much fun and some of my best memories are from playing those games with friends and stuff. But I find it really hard to revisit most of those games based on their own merit.
There is definitely a thing about playing games together with another person that can be magical. And that isn’t gone. You can still do that today with modern games. So in that regard, I don’t think there is anything particularly special about 80s games. Heck, it wasn’t until the N64 that it was common for more than 2 people to be able to play together. A bunch of guys hanging out and all playing a game together was great.
I think losing that is just a factor of growing up. You move on from your friends, maybe you don’t make any new ones, you start mainly playing against faceless strangers online… It’s not a problem with the games, it’s a problem with the players.
I have definitely bonded with people over video games. Playing them together, or playing them apart but doing so physically side by side, talking about them… most social groups I’ve been, even when they were not formed around gaming at all, went and made a Minecraft server for us to play together. I think it is telling that the fastest way to get me to open a game and start playing is if my other friends are playing. I am younger than your generation, though, so I’m definitely not helping your argument for retro games specifically.
Online play has helped a lot for when I am physically separated from friends. Just hop in a game and voice chat, and play together anyways.
If you’re not having fun with Mario Kart you should play Drinking Mario Kart. Everyone gets a beverage of their choice. By the end of the race it has to be empty. But because we are all responsible adults we don’t drink and drive. In order to take a sip (or down the whole thing) you have to drive off the track (or to the side, whatever is possible) and come to a complete halt.
Loser drinks one more because they are a loser. And the winner drinks one more to celebrate.
Honestly? Not really. My best memories of gaming were in my 20s in my student flat. Lots of Team Fortress 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2.
I played games in the early '90s and don't have much nostalgia for most of the games themselves. The late '90s had the PSX and N64 and whilst Mario Kart 64 is probably the best in the series I can't say I feel most of the games of those platforms were "the best".
I think I would say that the best games are the PC games that came out between 1998 and 2002. Those I can genuinely enjoy today.
I cannot say the same for much that came out in the 1980s. Most of them entertain me for about thirty seconds, without hyperbole.
Once we get past the early 2000s I'm hard pressed to find any games that I think are truly "the best". 2007 was pretty damn good as was 2009.
When it comes to gaming with friends any game can be good. The game is practically just a framing device. I've not made many friends whilst gaming. I've gamed with friends but mostly I've found that people either just want to be arseholes or are extremely serious about playing online. In person I've found that the skill disparity means that it's a complete crapshoot. I played a lot of Mario Kart 64 over a ten year period and don't have any outstanding memories of it being the best thing ever (I think it's the best MK game but that's because the others are worse).
Mostly I like games that I can use as escapism. Exploring fun places and getting away from the day to day. I've rarely had all that much fun gaming with other people. Exceptions exist though - playing through the recent TMNT game with my teenaged niece was a blast. Playing KeyWe with my wife was also great.
Good question! I found it more complicated because you have such a wide variety of resources needed to build everything and only so much storage on your ship so multiple trips and not as convenient fast travel if outside your system.
More than that though is the ridiculous cargo system. You have to create machines to pull out the resources from the ground then a machine to store them and a transport one to get it to the cargo link then it only goes to one side of the cargo link as an outbound resource. Just needlessly complicated and poorly explained in my opinion.
It was the game you put on in pre-internet years for your younger relatives, so they don’t have to just sit and fester all day while listening a story about your aunts hip surgery.
It was something anyone could pick up in a second and still be a challenge for anyone.
For most of them this was the only time they were able to play games with a larger group without their mothers bitching about game time. Many kids didn’t even have gaming systems, because they were expensive and many parents thought they were a bad addictive influence, so for them this was an absolute delight.
So, fun memories about the game, even though the game itself isn’t much.
Somehow those cultural influences still echo in the modern world. Dads with all that nostalgia convince their kids that Mario Kart is absolute classic.
I would mostly agree. The magic of video games and the virtual worlds was bridged to the real world by sharing them with friends. I can totally see that!
I guess “modern” gaming works best when playing online with friends (not every game allows that of course), and wind down type of games. Self care gaming 😄.
I had some great moments though screensharing my game on discord while being able to watch what my friend was playing on their screenshare. There is something - even though that it is not exactly what you were hinting at, as obviously you can’t directly influence the game that the other is playing - but it is a shared experience in some way that makes it feel connected and special.
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